I’m told to generate a list for Santa every year, as no one can figure out what to get me. It’s time for a new table saw blade. I’ve always wondered just how well Forrest blades perform, but never bought one. When I need a blade, I need a blade and usually get whatever Freud blade I can find at one of the box stores. If I am gong to do a lot of ripping, I’ll swap out my 80 tooth blade and throw in a ripping blade but usually, I have the 80 toother in the saw. It looks as if Forrest has three different blades out now. They only had the original out last time I looked.

So does anyone have experience with Forrest blades?

I think I’m going to put a new Incra miter gauge on my list too. I have the original and I see they now have one that allows you to miter for and aft. That’s one thing that my Incra has always bothered me with – can only miter one direction. If anyone has the new Incra, let me know what you think about that as well please.

Can't comment on the Forrest Blades as I've only used 12" Freud(imo very good), 12"Craftsman(not bad), 10"Ridgid(very good) and 7 1/4 Dewalt(so-so) blades on my various saws. However, have a good look at the carbides on any saw blade...it should be thick for strength and for resharpening and should be of a good micro grain quality as well as being consistant all around the saw blade. By this, I mean that a lot of the cheaper blades have poorly brazed, thinner or inconsistant carbide thickness as well as an inconsistant grind as you compare tooth to tooth.

Forrest has been around for a long time so I'm sure they make a quality product and made in the US as I understand.

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Half of communication is listening. You can't listen with your mouth.

I use Forrest Woodworker II full-kerf blade right now; I had a Forrest WW II thin kerf blade previously. Both have been great in quality of cut and convenience of not having to swap blades back and forth.

I've never used a Freud Fusion before, but have heard good things about it as well. Personally, I like the way the Forrests can be returned to the manufacturer for resharpening.

I can respond to the Incra questions as well, but I'll have to get home first!

Cool, thanks. I'm also looking at the Incra fence system for my Rigid contractor saw. I just can't fit a cabinet saw in my garage, so I'm looking at getting a better fence for it and the Inra looks pretty slick....

While I'm at it, how about Tenoning jigs? I'm tired of doing them over my dado blade and am looking at the Delta and Jet models. I'd prefer to stick with a table saw jig verses router.

Mike, please let me(us)know how that fence works, I have the same saw as you

That is one nice looking fence.

Update:

So as I indicated before, when I started looking at the Incra TS fence, I started looking at table saws too. I figured that if I was going to sacrifice floor space to accommodate the Incra, I might as well upgrade to a better saw. (nothing wrong with the Rigid, but it does have its limitations). Grizzly has a 25% off sale on a 3 HP cabinet saw and after they ship it to me, the cost was going to be around $1200. I typically do not buy used machines / tools, as I have no idea how well the owner treated them (and I am very anal when it comes to taking care of my tools), so I usually buy new. I figured I might as well see what’s on Craig’s list. Someone had a Delta Unisaw listed for a grand, very little use with a Rockwell Unifence. I took a drive and checked it out. It was bought new, never used at an auction by the seller. He used it one day, then put it up in his loft where it’s sat since 2002. It still had the motor shipping bracket installed and the plastic on the name plate. I couldn’t walk away from it…. So I was in the garage with my dial indicators setting up the table and figuring out how to build some fill tables when the UPS guy showed up with some peculiar looking boxes from Amazon for my girlfriend. One was damaged, so I did the only thing a caring boyfriend would do and made sure that her stuff wasn’t damaged. First thing I saw was Incra on the boxes……!! I let her know that if that was my Christmas present, and it was my fence, I wouldn’t mind if she gave it to me now, verses Christmas day. Long story a bit longer, I finished installing the Incra on my new, used Unisaw and built filler tables last weekend. I spent a couple hours playing with the fence and absolutely love it! The saw is a pleasure to use to, but the fence is incredible. If you’ve been seriously looking at one, don’t hesitate and buy it. Amazon has it on sale right now for $340 or thereabouts. The only negative I can think of now is it does take up a lot of room to the right of the saw. When the fence is to the right for wide rips, the T-fence sticks out into the air about 30”. If you can work with that, the only other ‘negative’ I can come up with is it is somewhat of a pain to store if you need to pull it off the saw. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that yet. Probably make a hanger to hang it on a wall when not in use.